What is the correct way to refer to the country of "Netherlands (Europe)": Is it:?

1. The Netherlands
2. Netherlands
3. Holland

Any Dutch people care to shed some insight? I always wanted to know. I know there are these 3 terms, but I don't know how which one is the correct one to refer to the European country.

1. The Netherlands is the correct term.
2. Just Netherlands is only used on the back of sportswear for our national sportingteams as far as I know... Probably because it麓s already quite long and if they had to put `the` in front of it the letters would end up too small...oh, and of course Yahoo! Answers uses it for this category...
3. Holland is a historical name, nowadays often used as a popular name for The netherlands, kind of like saying `The States` instead of The United States of America... About 250 years ago, when the USA didn't exist yet and The United States of The Netherlands was a superpower, Holland was the most powerfull of the Dutch States, that's why. Nowadays Holland is just two out of twelve Dutch provinces, still quite important though, as the three largest Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague) are all in the 2 Holland provinces, North Holland and South Holland. Some Dutch people who are not from Holland but one of the 10 other provinces might not like it very much if you would say that they were from Holland...

The Netherlands in english and in dutch Nederland

The first.